


Tricolor Cockade

by megster



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, post-barricade fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 16:04:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megster/pseuds/megster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is going mad, she is certain of it, because she hears Courfeyrac’s clear voice calling to her and feels Joly’s hand on the small of her back and when she closes her eyes she thinks she can see Bahorel’s rakish grin in front of her and yes, she must be going mad.</p><p>She finds herself standing on the very stones that they must have died upon, all nine of her boys, because they were all hers, to a certain extent.</p><p>She carefully sits down, making sure to stay out of the way of any passers-by, and she isn’t prone to hysterics, but this one time she allows herself to bury her head in her hands and cry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tricolor Cockade

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Кокарда с триколором](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4471418) by [rose_rose (Escargot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escargot/pseuds/rose_rose)



Some days are worse than others.

She never knows what mundane thing will remind her of one of them.

Last week a friend had shown her a delicate bouquet of miniature roses and for a moment she had been unable to breathe for remembering a young man with a bashful smile and soft voice.

Yesterday she had heard a man on the street complaining of a cold, and though he probably did actually have one, she had stopped walking abruptly and gone to sit down.

Today is not a good day, because she wakes up with the shadow of Joly’s lips on her throat and Bossuet’s voice in her ear.

She wishes they would leave her alone, and she’s terrified that they will and she’ll forget them forever.

She wants to forget them, sometimes. 

It would mean the constant sense of loss would go away. 

She can almost feel them lying beside her, and she can’t bring herself to open her eyes. When she opens her eyes, they disappear, and today she isn’t strong enough.

But she is, of course she is, and she gathers her thoughts and banishes their ghosts and gets out of bed.

It’s just another day.

It will be just like the other days since the barricade, and she will make it through.

*

She is not entirely sure what possesses her; she has not gone to the barricade site since _that day_ , but she finds herself walking towards it anyway.

Maybe she need this, she thinks. Maybe this will give her some sense of closure.

So she keeps going, and takes deep breaths, and maybe she’s going mad but she can almost see Joly stepping carefully beside her and Bossuet tripping over his own feet as she laughs at him.

As she nears the narrow street where her Joly, her Bosssuet, had made their last stand, she has trouble breathing.

She is going mad, she is certain of it, because she hears Courfeyrac’s clear voice calling to her and feels Joly’s hand on the small of her back and when she closes her eyes she thinks she can see Bahorel’s rakish grin in front of her and yes, she must be going mad.

She finds herself standing on the very stones that they must have died upon, all nine of her boys, because they were all hers, to a certain extent.

She carefully sits down, making sure to stay out of the way of any passers-by, and she isn’t prone to hysterics, but this one time she allows herself to bury her head in her hands and cry.

“Excuse me,” a voice says gently, and Musichetta lifts her head. A girl is standing over her. She is young, younger by a few years than Musichetta, and pretty, with large eyes and dark hair falling gracefully down her back. “I don’t mean to intrude, but are you all right?”

Musichetta can’t trust her voice not to shake, not yet, so she gives a short nod and a shaky smile to the girl.

The girl smiles back, and gathers her skirts and sits down beside Musichetta.

“I come here sometimes,” she says, and her voice is not careful, exactly, but it is light. “I am told many brave men died here not so long ago.”

Musichetta closes her eyes, and their faces are burned onto the insides of her eyelids.

“That is true,” she says to the other, and the girl smiles at her sadly.

“You know, my husband nearly died here. He was very lucky to live.” 

Musichetta looks at the girl, really looks at her, and drags up the memory of Feuilly telling her about the stray Courfeyrac had brought to the café, the boy who had fallen in love and was nearly worse than useless when he was thinking of her.

“Yes,” she says, “He was fortunate. You are very fortunate, the both of you.”

“I’m called Cosette,” the girl says. “Marius--my husband-- speaks of them. He mourns for them. Did you know the men who died here?”

Musichetta smiles, a little bitterly. “I knew them, and loved them, and I mourn also. My grief is greater than you or he can possibly imagine.”

Cosette nods. “I am sorry, truly, for those you have lost.”

“It is no fault of yours that the men I loved had hearts that could not bear the discontent of the motherland and the courage to try to change the world.” Musichetta says flatly. She needs no platitudes, sincere though Cosette may be. 

“It is not my fault,” Cosette says, her voice growing sharper, “But still, I am sorry for your pain. You are right, I cannot imagine what you have felt these past months.”

In another lifetime, Musichetta thinks that she would have liked this girl, this girl with a straight back and gentle smile with conviction in her voice and a certain sadness in her eyes.

“Did you know them all?” Cosette asks.

“All of those that died here?” Musichetta asks.

Cosette nods.

Musichetta shakes her head. “Many, but not all. The leaders of this barricade were dear to me.” Her voice is growing steadier finally, and she’s relieved for it.

“Will you tell me about them?” Cosette asks, and there’s a plaintiveness to her tone. “Marius will not tell me of them; he says only that he did not know each of them well, but they were all brave and good, and I feel that I would like to know something more of them.”

And Musichetta recognizes Cosette’s need to understand her husband, to see this piece of her husband’s life in front of her. 

“I don’t mean to pry,” Cosette says hurriedly, and Musichetta realizes that she has been silent for some time.

“Once,” she says, plunging into a story (because if she does not start now, and quickly, she will never start, and their stories will never be told, and their stories _deserve_ to be told), “There were three men following me, and it was nearly dark, and I was beginning to be frightened. Bahorel started a street brawl when he struck one of them, and I had to take him to my Joly because he had blacked both eyes and could not see his way home. The three men were unconscious by the end of it, though.” She speaks quickly, as though the story is fighting to leave her.

Cosette says nothing, although she is attentive.

“The first time Courfeyrac met me, he kissed me on the cheek and I thought Joly was going to hit him. He didn’t mean anything by it, of course, which was why Joly did not even say anything.”

“I would have liked to meet him,” Cosette says, almost to herself. “Marius speaks about him the most often.”

“Yes,” Musichetta says, “But then, Courfeyrac was closest to Marius.”

“Marius says he was kind down to his bones,” Cosette says.

“He was, and concerned with justice and fairness, and his nature may have been full of mirth but he had steel in his spirit,” Musichetta says, and a smile finds its way onto her face. “Courfeyrac was an easy man to love.”

“Were you-” Cosette begins to say, and Musichetta shakes her head sharply.

“No,” she says. “Joly and Bossuet--we were... But no, the other men were as brothers to me, and I loved them as a sister would.”

“I would have liked to have brothers,” Cosette says thoughtfully. “I have no brothers or sisters, and I was often quite lonely growing up.”

“I was never lonely growing up,” Musichetta says, remembering a clever boy with no family to speak of, who had grown into a clever young man with graceful hands and an artist’s eye and a tired smile, a young man with a thirst for knowledge that could not be quenched, and she misses Feuilly with every fiber of her being. “But I am lonely now.”

“You know,” Cosette says, “I think Marius would like to meet you.”

Musichetta says, “I think I would bring with me memories he would rather not think about. He should live his life without the burden of their ghosts because he has you, and you have him. I envy the both of you.”

“You will find love again,” Cosette says, “Because you are so plainly a loving person. You can hardly speak right now for the love you hold for these friends of yours.”

“I have no love left to give others,” Musichetta says, bitterness seeping into her voice. “Any love I had in me died with them. Oh, how disappointed they would be to hear me say that!”

Cosette tilts her head, turns it into a question.

“They loved me so, and I loved them back just as fiercely,” Musichetta says. “And I regret every time I was unkind to either of them, each time I snapped at Joly that he was not going to die or mocked Bossuet for his misfortune. And now they are both dead, and I am the one who suffers misfortune.”

“You are not,” Cosette says, and her voice takes on a slight edge. “You are not, because you have known them, and so your life has been blessed. The greater misfortune would have been if you had never known them.”

And part of Musichetta wants to lash out, tell Cosette that it’s easy for _her_ to say, she still has the person that matters most, and Musichetta, well, she is left with nothing but memories that swirl around her, come and go fleetingly, memories that threaten to overwhelm her at any point in the day.

“I miss them,” she says, and it occurs to her that this is the first time she’s admitted it out loud. She’s felt it keenly, of course, that something is lacking, that there is something that is not right when they are not here. But she has never said a word of it to anybody, except perhaps her younger sister, who had not understood, not really, and even to her sister she had only said that she was grieving. But grieving for someone and missing someone are two different things.

Cosette rests a hand on Musichetta’s arm lightly. “It is a dull ache, that sometimes focuses and sharpens so that you can hardly breathe.”

“Yes,” Musichetta says, and looks at the other girl, wondering who she has lost.

“My father,” Cosette says, and a small smile creeps across her face. “He was the best man I knew, and the best man I am ever likely to know, and I owe him _everything_.”

She slowly moves to stand up. “I must be going. I have enjoyed our conversation...?”

“Oh,” Musichetta says, “I have been rude. My name is Musichetta.”

“I would like to see you again,” Cosette says earnestly. “I come here every other week, at this time. It is a time for me to think. Will you join me?”

Musichetta says, “I may, although I make no promises.”

“You know where to find me, then,” Cosette says. 

Musichetta stands.

Cosette takes her hands, and passes something to her. “It was lovely to meet you.”

Musichetta doesn’t speak, for Cosette has pressed a tricolor cockade into her hand. The sight of it brings back everything and anything she has hoped to lay to rest--Bahorel’s sharp smile and Courfeyrac’s easy laugh and the sound of Jehan’s flute and Feuilly’s graceful artist’s hands and Combeferre’s steady voice and the way Enjolras could command a room and Grantaire’s good-natured ranting and Bossuet’s ever-present good humor in the face of disaster and Joly’s ability to make her smile even in the worst of moods.

When she gathers her wits about her enough to speak, she looks up for Cosette, but the other girl has gone.

“Thank you,” she says, anyway, because kindness deserves thanks, even if the thanks is unheard.

The sun is setting and the city is illuminated with a gentle fire and for the first time in months Musichetta feels at peace and she walks home with a tricolor cockade nestled in her palm. She thinks that their ghosts will never leave her, that she will always remember them with a painful clarity.

She thinks she can hear Bossuet and Joly bickering behind her, and if she closes her eyes they are with her, and she is almost happy.


End file.
